Magic Leap 2 Arrives In September With A Hefty Price Hike
Magic Leap has announced that its second-generation mixed reality headset is finally going on sale starting in September, but the asking price won't be appealing. The Base edition of Magic Leap 2, which is targeted at "professionals and developers," will set buyers back by a handsome $3,299. For comparison, the first-gen Magic Leap headset started at $2,300, which means the company is asking for a $1,000 generation-over-generation premium.
The Developer Pro version — which comes with enterprise-centric features, sample projects, developer tools in tow, and monthly software releases — carries a price tag of $4,099. Finally, there's the Magic Leap 2 Enterprise trim, which costs $4,999 and comes with a wider set of enterprise-focused solutions for large-scale deployment; it also bundles two years of extended warranty. It is worth noting that there's no extra hardware add-on for any of the bundles mentioned above despite the steep prices.
Unlike its predecessor, the tall promises made for it, and the bad reception that followed, the Magic Leap 2 is targeted squarely at business customers, which is clearly evident from the product tagline that calls it "the most immersive AR platform for enterprise." Touted as the "smallest and lightest device" of its kind upon its launch in 2021, the Magic Leap 2 brings a handful of crucial upgrades over its infamous predecessor.
Big upgrades, high price, and sharp focus
Aside from a smaller form factor that tips the scales at around just 9 ounces, Magic Leap 2 also promises a wider field of view at 70 degrees, with each eye taking a peek at 2.5 million pixels' worth of content on a screen with a 120Hz refresh rate. The 12.6-megapixel RGB camera is capable of 4K video capture, but it won't be long before the 256GB onboard storage fills up with hi-res footage. In total, there are three world-facing cameras, a depth sensor, a main RGB snapper, and four eye-tracking cameras.
At the heart of Magic Leap's latest offering is a 7nm AMD chip with four cores based on the Zen 2 architecture, while graphics heavy lifting is done by an AMD GPU with eight compute units and a peak frequency of 1.8GHz. The screen offers a resolution of 1440 x 1760 pixels, while the peak brightness goes up to an impressive 2,000 nits, as per the official spec sheet.
Magic Leap claims that its updated mixed-reality headset can last up to 3.5 hours on a single charge while putting it in sleep mode will drain the battery in seven hours. Aside from the U.S. market, the metaverse gear is also expected to go on sale in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on September 30. Later this year, it will also be up for grabs in Japan and Singapore.